DadCentric

DadCentric Cooks: Jerkitas

Sometimes the best things are happy accidents. Dick Cheney, for example, shoots a guy and THE GUY ENDS UP APOLOGIZING! How great is that? "I'm sorry you shot me. Really, my bad, for looking like a 6 foot tall pigeon wearing Day-Glo orange hunting attire. Stupid, stupid me." Just goes to show ya. What, I'm not sure, but in any case I'm sitting on the floor enjoying an ice cold Cooper's Sparkling Ale (thanks, Pete, for the tip!) and the modified remnants of last night's feast, which actually turned out to be better than the original concoction! But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

First, a backstory: Beth's parents spent a great deal of time in Barbados, and turned me on to Caribbean cooking. Inspired by them and the great little Jamaican place down the street from our house, I whipped up a batch of jerk pork, using the following:

1/4 cup of brown sugar

2 tsp. cayenne pepper

2 tsp. paprika

1 tsp. garlic powder

1 tsp. ground black pepper

1 tsp. dried thyme

1 tsp. ground ginger

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1 tsp. ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp. ground cloves

Mixed it all up, then rubbed it over a 2 lb. pork shoulder roast. Busted out the Crock Pot, poured in a 1/4 cup of Worchestersershiresheer sauce, diluted that with 1/4 cup of water, added a couple of pinches of the leftover spice mix for good measure, put the roast in, cooked on low of 8 hours, shredded the meat and scooped it out using a slotted spoon (there's gonna be a lot of liquid, which you really don't need) and voila, dinner was served (with black beans and rice, courtesy of my good friends over at Zatarain's). It was pretty good. BUT I found the meat to be a bit fatty, so if you try this use a leaner cut of pork...OR you can do what I did with the leftovers.

Carnitas are/is the great secret of Mexican cooking; those of you who live outside of SoCal and who've never heard of carnitas, do yourselves a favor and seek it/them out. (After three years of high school Spanish, I get confused as to carnitas' proper tense). Essentially, it's pork that's been braised and then fried in its own fat and juices until somewhat crispy.

So for lunch I busted out the leftovers, still a bit fatty, and threw them into a skillet, fried off the fat until just crispy, then threw the whole mess into a couple of tortillas. And it was good. I wish I'd had some pineapple salsa to go with it.

So there you go - a twofer. Jerkitas. I'm thinking about starting up a chain.

Blue is the New Pink

I was on a hunting expedition at Macy's this weekend, looking for new pajamas for our daughter that didn't snap open every time she stretched her legs.  When I got to the toddler department, it was neatly divided into boys and girls sections, the former being predominantly blue, and the latter being predominantly pink.  It took me back to our early debates on what color to paint her room before we knew she was "a her."  We were supposed to color code it to match the gender, but my question then is the same question I have now:  Why?

It drives me nuts that everyone just assumes that girls should be wearing pink outfits with princesses and unicorns on them, while boys should be wearing blue outfits with trains and footballs.  Where's the flexibility in that?  What if I don't want my daughter to look like a wad of chewing gum?  Why do people talk about how cute "he" is when she's wearing a blue shirt (or dress!) or look at me funny when I pull out the Guns 'n' Roses t-shirt?  How did this happen?

Because I'm a nerd, I did a little research on this.  No one is sure exactly when the color conventions for children developed, but it looks like it wasn't until well into the 20th century.  In fact, the colors used to be reversed.  An issue of Ladies Home Journal from 1918 advised mothers, "There has been a great diversity of opinion on the subject, but the generally accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl. The reason is that pink being a more decided and stronger color is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is pertier for the girl."  ("Pertier?"  Did drunk Southern frat boys write for the Journal?)  It wasn't until the 1940's that the colors we are familiar with today became commonly accepted.

So who are we to do things just because "the man" tells us to?  Fight back!  Let your daughter wear her Misfits t-shirt with pride!  And if you really really really want to dress your son in pink, then go for it.  Just tell them it was manly back when we shit in the woods.  Who can argue with that?

Wow! What Happened To Us?

My how we change.  My wife and I, prior to the birth of our 2-year-old, enjoyed a pretty active social life on the weekends.  Her/our eldest daughter was with her Dad at those times and that left us free to live it up.  And that we did.  Not only was I living in a pretty happening 4-plex that - at least within spitting distance - was THE PLACE to be on any given night, but, the restaurant at which she works had a pretty happening scene at their bar as well.  The bartenders there always hooked us up were friendly.  We spent many a night closing the place down with her co-workers. Top that off with best friends who worked in the record, entertainment and action sports businesses and we always had something cool to do.  Lots of late nights, drinking and general fast living.  It was fun.  But it came to an abrupt end when we had our daughter.  No weekend Dads to pawn the [both] kids off to and no family/friends to otherwise give us some relief.  We've been in lock down for the past two years.

So, with my mother-in-law in town, we were chomping at the bit to get out and do it up right. We gave it our best effort, but, ultimately realized that we are not the same people we used to be.  We can't hold our liquor.  We turn in to tired, cranky, withered old prunes after 10:00pm.  Rock shows are too damn loud.  And, as it became so painfully apparent to us, we rely and feed off the little routine we created for our daughters probably more than they do.  We felt out of place and out of our element no matter what we did.  I can't tell you how many times we looked at each other last week and said, "I kind of wish we were back home on our couch in our pajamas."

Her old restaurant bar seemed hollow and lifeless. It wasn't the scene I remembered.  We saw a cool band at the Viper Room (along with Olympic Gold Medalist Shaun White and Elijah Woods - who was sporting his boy toy there with his "personal assistant"), but, we might as well have been wearing jean shorts, Tivas and fanny packs given how out-of-place we felt.  This, the club I've played at more than any other in Los Angeles.  We took a 24hr leave of absence, spent the night at a casino-resort, gambled a combined 40 minutes and was in bed by 11:15pm.  Yeah, we were raging.

My wife and I are actually relieved.  We thought we were missing out this whole time.  In reality, we've simply evolved.  We can close the book on those old lives, remember them for the fun times they were, and embrace the simpler little life we've carved for ourselves and our family. 

We still have two more weeks with my mother-in-law.  Sure, we'll slip out for a movie, grab brunch, spend an extra hour in the garage without feeling guilty or maybe take a day off to surf.  But we'll make sure to be back for dinner, watch our little one do her "nudie-patootie" dance before bath, read the girls to sleep and then settle down on the couch in our comfies.  Hell, maybe we'll even embrace the 5:30am wake ups.  Regardless, we're happy little campers.

Another expert like I need a hole in my head

How did our parents, their parents, their parents and their parents, ad infinitum, ever survive without the surfeit of baby books and resources like the Internet?  How is it society and civilization has been able to move forward all these centuries without the sage advice of experts, unraveling the great mysteries of child rearing for all to see?  I think because sane people ignored these so-called experts and realized that man has been around for a long fuckin' time and didn't need some guy hawking a book to help them understand that a child running head first into walls was not a good thing.

In the Dubya household we are experiencing what may very well be, to borrow a phrase from Mrs. Big Dubya, a diaper rash perfect storm.  Currently, Little Dub has a nasty case of diarrhea, which in turn has caused an even nastier diaper rash.  Let me say this right up front, loud and clear: We do not neglect our child.  If anything, it is from overcompensating and making sure he's super shiny clean after one of his explosive squirts.  Add to this the fact that he's teething like a big dog...again...and the boy can get no relief, neither upstairs nor down.  Well, according to one of the daycare teachers, Mrs. Big Dubya learned this morning that it's possible that the teething has exacerbated his case of red ass.  I didn't understand how this was possible, but then again, still learning over here.  So, I Googled, and came across some info on teething that included a belief of Dr. Sears (author of The Baby Book) "that teething can cause diarrhea and a mild diaper rash because your baby's excessive saliva ends up in his gut and loosens his stools. Inflammation in the gums, he thinks, may cause a low fever (under 101 degrees Fahrenheit)."  Wow - who knew.  Kind of makes sense, right?  Yeah, of course until you start reading the next paragraph and experts like Penelope Leach and T. Berry Brazelton totally put the kibosh on that assertion.  Well, since I wanted to be thorough in my research, I continued Googling only to find sites that reaffirm Dr. Sears' belief and sites that immediately label such beliefs as myths.

Which brings me back to the beginning, with so much conflicting information out there, why do I not see more parents running down the street, screaming, pulling their hair out, pleading for help?  I can't be the only one who finds all this frustrating as hell.

Fecal Matters

One of the things that I pride myself on is that on this site and my personal blog I've generally avoided posting about the wonders and complexities of my kid's bowel movements. Not that I'm squeamish about such things (the picture to the right should tell you that much, although I'll warn you all - doing a Google Image Search on "shit" is like opening the Gates of Hell. Really - some things, once seen, can never be unseen). It's just that so many bloggers than I read and admire do a much better job of depicting excremental  horrors than I could (Danny Evans, in my opinion, is the Poet Laureate of Child Scatology), so I defer to them. I will say that one of my kid's favorite foods is black beans and rice, and based on the evidence he a)swallows the stuff whole and b)had we the mind to do so, we could shake it out of his diaper, put it in a strainer and run some warm water over it, and serve it to dinner guests the following evening. (Of course, we'd never do such a thing. Really. Although I gotta tell you - Vons is apparently doing away with Double Coupons, and if that happens, all options to save money on groceries are on the table.)

So I don't talk about my kid's shits. I will, however, talk about my dog's.

As the man of the house, it falls on me to pick up Mick's droppings. And drop he does - at least 20 times a day, by my estimation. So every couple of days I head out into the yard, scented trash bag in one hand, "Pooper Scooper" in the other, looking to all the world like one of those reprobates you see alongside the road, sentenced to picking up trash as punishment for drinking a case of Old Milwaukee then taking the '78 El Camino out for a spin. The task is not as easy as it looks: along with volume, we're talking an amazing level of fecal diversity. Squirming Coils. Baby Ruths. Snack Packs. And my personal favorite: the Glazed Swallow's Nest (what happens is, the dog will rip apart one of his stuffed toys and eat the stuffing; the next day, ta da! A diarrhea-covered ball of synthetic yarn that looks remarkably like the Asian delicacy depicted in the above. Yes, people really eat that. I saw 'em do it on Iron Chef once). Furthermore, the dog has a habit of walking while he shits, meaning that often times I find myself slowly searching through the tall grass for hidden remnants, like Mark Hamill digging for enemy mines in The Big Red One.

That's how I spent the better part of Sunday afternoon. Miserable, nasty work. But while I was shovelling dog turds, I thought about our dog, and what he's meant to our family, and what life would be like without him, and then I stepped in a big pile of shit.

What Do Men go Through When Their Partners Have Babies?

A lot of the information about parenthood seems to be geared towards mothers and families. There doesn’t seem to be much information for fathers. If you really really look, you might be able to find little gems here and there, but in general fathers are a very under-represented bunch.

With sites like DadCentric, The Blogfathers and others on the rise, it’s great to see that dads are starting to have a say in the world of parenting. One area I think is lacking is information on what you can expect and how to cope when your partner falls pregnant.

Sure they tell you all about what your partner will go through and how you can help, but no-one wants to talk about the sometimes hard part of going through a pregnancy as a partner, husband and a man.

If you’re a man and you’re reading this, I’m not trying to scare you. These are some of the things that I found hard leading up to becoming a new father. I think it’s important to talk about these issues, otherwise we won’t be doing our part to create better fathers who have a say about their role (isn’t that why we started this site in the first place)

If you’re a women and you’re reading this, I’m not trying to take anything away from you, or your role as a mum. I’m simply talking about the things dad’s go through when you carry our kids. We may not know how to express these things or feel comfortable talking to you about them, but rest assured I can almost guarantee that most of the guys reading this will have felt this way at one point or another.

Feelings of loneliness

Pregnancy is a very personal thing. Even though many wives are great in involving dads-to-be, you can still feel like a third wheel sometimes. Feeling the kicks and punches from your unborn children is amazing, but it’s hard to feel connected to that sometimes. It’s like standing on the outside looking in.

Feelings of helplessness

The fact that pregnancy is happening to your wife and only your wife leaves men with the support role. Many men haven’t been shown, know how or feel comfortable doing this effectively. Getting glasses of water and giving foot-rubs helps, however, these menial acts are sometimes foreshadowed by your wife’s ultimate sacrifice to her body, making you feel pretty inferior.

Lack of support

Let me ask you this; how many times did people ask how you were going after the birth? My guess is - not many. You possibly have a few ‘thoughtful’ friends that ask how you are going, but as a rule, dads seem to get forgotten.

I’m not trying to take anything away from women, their amazing strength and the debilitating process of giving birth and feeding children, I’m simply stating that believe it or not, dads have legitimate feelings and needs about pregnancy and birth that are sometimes pushed to the backburner and we are allowed to have thoughts and opinions about these.

Having mates who are ‘blokes’

Blokes, by definition, are manly men. Men who shotgun a tinny (that’s skull a beer) and crush it on their forehead. I have mates like this. I don’t have too many friends who I can talk to about the rigors of fatherhood, god forbid how I feel about it. Women seem to be a little more understanding about children and what having them means. Your mates are more likely to tell you to pull your head in and finish that beer because “We’re off to the Titty Bar boys!”

See Matt’s post on The Blogfathers about his breast milk incident and you will know what I’m talking about.

Lack of information

Much of the material that is available through hospitals and doctors surgeries is geared towards mothers, their health and the health of their children. Fathers don’t often get regognised as a legitimate part of the family and as such, need information and help dealing with the complex feelings and emotions that come with becoming a father.

Being cast from a different mould

Lets face it, a major part of the role of care-giver, is in the hands of the mother, particularly so if they choose to breastfeed. Many mothers stay at home whilst dads go out to work.

Mothers get in a groove and have their own way of doing things. This may not be the way dads do things. When dads do things the way they think it should be done, conflict can arise. Men, out of necessity most times, need to subdue their own ways to fit in with mum. Most of the time we do this happily, sometimes always giving in to another person’s requirement can be a little enslaving. It’s nice to be a team with your wife, but it’s also nice to be a dad and make your own mistakes.

Being at the end of the line

Baby comes first. Always!

Mum meets baby’s needs.
Dad looks after mums needs.

Dad gets looked after by……..hmmm. There’s no-one left.

I’m in no way trying to say that dads need as much support as baby or mum. These two people are amazing creatures and needs lots and lots of support BUT having no-one to think about you is a pretty lonely feeling sometimes.

Loss of affection

Pregnancy takes a pretty big toll on women. As a result, many women don’t feel as strongly about affection as they did pre-bump. This is quite normal and there is nothing wrong with a drop in affection. This doesn’t mean that we can’t have feelings about it right? It can be tough for men, particularly if affection is an affirmation of togetherness, happiness and confirmation on their ability to please their wife.

Women, due to the consuming rigors of pregnancy and childbirth, I imagine just don’t feel like affection a lot of the time. It’s awkward, uncomfortable and tiring. (I’m talking about all kinds of affection here, cuddles, kissing, canoodling, not just sex.)

Men are left to deal with this reduction whilst having no change to their bodies, urges or mindset. That can be hard to deal with.

Being a punching bag

Hormones, aren’t they wonderful? Most of us are happy to bite our lip whilst our wives turn into sobbing, yelling, farting, screaming, pointing, vomiting, knaw your ear off, nagging hysterical man eating monsters. But that doesn’t mean we have to like it right?

We are pretty happy copping all this, as many of men realise (and if they don’t, they should) that partners make an extremely large sacrifice to carry babies however; this doesn’t mean we are robots and don’t feel anything when we get saucepans thrown at our heads for spilling the milk, or cause our wives to breakdown in racking sobs of grief because we told them we prefer the green top to the red one.

As they say a rubber band only stretches so far before it snaps.

Some of you may call me a whiney little prick, others might applaud me for talking about these issues, whatever the case if men are going to play an active part in raising their kids and being a team with their partners, we need to be responsible for understanding how we feel and voicing our fears, hopes, dreams and aspirations so others can learn, talk and create a better environment for all of our children.

Kids' Music That Doesn't Suck

If you find yourself wanting to shoot Raffi's baby beluga in the back with a grenade-tipped harpoon and sell his carcass to the Japanese, you're not alone. Kids' music is great for kids, but most of it makes my ears bleed. There are, however, some artists out there who've made songs that are great for both kids and adults. Here are three excellent choices:

Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks, Various Artists: This is a rare gem. Recorded back in the mid 90's, the album features the likes of Ween, Biz Markie, Man or Astro-Man, and alternagods Pavement covering those great Schoolhouse Rock tunes. Blind Melon's cover of "3 Is A Magic Number" is my personal favorite, made poignant by lead singer Shannon Hoon's death not long after it was recorded(he left behind a wife and young child). The album was followed up by Schoolhouse Rocks The Vote!, and folks - that cat Isaac Hayes as Bill is a bad mother...hey, I'm just talkin' about Bill.

Dog Train, Sandra Boynton and friends: Lucas loves Boynton's books. Here she collaborates with a bunch of musicians (Blues Traveler, Five For Fighting, and she managed to pull the Spin Doctors off of their hugely successful tour of county fairs and Indian casinos) to produce a weird rock opera of sorts. Songs about Dog Trains and the Cow Planet will ensure that your kid will have this in his rotation for a while. He can take it to college and put it right next to the Phish and Dead CD's; Dog Train is good background music for those occasions when towels get stuffed under the dorm room door, if you catch my meaning.

Curious George soundtrack, Jack Johnson: If you like Jack, you'll love this CD. I bought it yesterday and have listened to it three times since. Jack is definitely a kid at heart, and unlike most soundtracks there's no filler here. (Remember when you rushed out and bought the Top Gun album? And you played it and wondered "what the fuck am I doing listening to Teena Marie?" And then you went to college and quickly realized that having anything Kenny Loggins-related with the exception of a well-worn VHS copy of Caddyshack is the quickest way to becoming a social pariah?) Standout tracks include the single "Upside Down", "Jungle Gym" (with G. Love), and a cover of The White Stripes' "We're Going To Be Friends".

So Many Social Engagements

With my mother-in-law in town for a couple of weeks, there's butt-loads of free time around our house.  I'm doing my best to take advantage of it, that's for sure.  In just under 5 days, I've done things I could never think of doing under normal circumstances:

• Ate out for breakfast and didn't even have to sit by our toddler
• Made a 4-hour surf run in the middle of the afternoon
• Stayed out till midnight with the wife
• Hung out in the garage without feeling guilty for being there
• Came home from work two hours after I left the office
• Haven't cooked a lick

And that's just so far.  Tonight, I'm hanging out at a bar; tomorrow my wife and I are going to watch a band; and Sunday, we're spending the day/night away from the kids.  We'll have a whole other week of living large after that too.

What makes it that much better is the fact that the girls don't seemed to be phased by all this.  They're still on their routine.  In fact, I've been there to bathe and put them down every night so far.  They're just getting their quota of love from their grandmother now while we're slipping out before and after the key routine activities.  It's a zero-sum arrangement as far as they're concerned. 

If anyone's phased, it's probably me.  Sure, I love this freedom, but, I'd be lying if I said I'd like it to be this way forever.  I guess I'm more of a hands-on Father than I thought.

Dadcentric Kitchen – You really need to try this

If you’re like me then you love a good steak. Maybe pork chops or a piece of fish. Most of the time, I fry meat in a frying pan. This is fine. There are other ways cook meats but this is probably the quickest and easiest.

I’m guessing most of you whack in a steak, fry the bugger up and put it on your plate. Done!
Let me ask you this, what you do with the frying pan?
Put it in the sink? Use it as a Frisbee? Whack your hubby on the head with it?

Usually when you cook meat there are bits stuck to the bottom of the pan. You also get juices from the meat in the bottom as well. I can’t stress this enough people DON’T THROW THIS AWAY. It’s where all the flavour is!

Please try this next time you cook a steak or pork chop and I guarantee your taste buds will thank you for it. After cooking the meat always let it rest. This helps tenderize the meat and stops your kids from burning their mouths. While the meat is resting, put the frying pan onto a low heat and add the following.

1 teaspoon of butter
1 good dash of oil
1/4 cup of water
Note (I always guesstimate my amounts so don’t get to precious)

That’s it. Simple hey?

Get a wooden spoon and scrape all the bits off the bottom of the pan and simmer for a couple of minutes. You don’t want a lot of this stuff, remember it’s not a gravy, it’s like a glaze to put over the meat so you probably only need about 2 tablespoons per piece of meat.

Now, this is pretty tasty by itself but if you really want to impress you can add different things to this glaze for example.

For Steak
Mushrooms and onions 
Garlic and pepper
Chili and rosemary

For Pork
Fresh sage and garlic
Mint
Honey and soy

For Fish
Lemon and thyme
Dill and pepper
Fennel

Please try this and tell me I’m not imagining this glaze adds a whole new dimension to the flavour of your meats. Remember, bit of butter, oil, water and a couple of herbs etc and you have yourself a very tasty glaze to spoon over your dinner.

If you try this, please let me know how it goes.

If It's 2:00 AM, It Must Be Nordic Combined

I'm an Olympics junkie. By my calculations, Ive watched about 24 hours' worth of Torino coverage to date.

Many of my compadres cast a jaundiced eye on the Games. NBC's coverage? Jingoism. Amateur athletes? Puh-LEASE. Subjective  - and as we saw in 2002, very fallible  - judging determining a contest's outcome? Give me SCORES, as in baskets, runs, touchdowns, or TIMES, as in 4:40. And curling? CURLING?

They're missing the point.

Picture this: you're flying down a serpentine track of pure ice at 90 miles an hour, mere inches separating you from the surface. If you fall, there's an excellent chance that you'll end up paralyzed, or bleeding out as the sharpened edge of your sled's rail nicks an artery as it slams into you. You've spent years literally risking life and limb for a shot at your sport's top honor. You may only get one chance. And the margin of victory may be measured in the time it takes for the letter "a" to appear on this screen after my finger hits the key.

Picture this: you're 21 and it's your first Olympics, on the same team with guys named Bode and Darren, legends in the making. While the spotlight's been on them, you've quietly prepared for your moment in the Combined Downhill, and even though it's probably going to be Miller Time (as the ads and the announcers and everyone else has been saying), you're going to go out and do your best, because you're just glad to be here. At the end of the first stage of the competition, you're in 32nd place. But what no one else knows - your best stuff is yet to come.

Picture this: It's 1980, you're a college kid, playing hockey for Boston College, and you're tapped to play on a U.S. team that hasn't come close to medalling in 20 years. You're an amateur, and you and your teammates have somehow managed to muster up the sheer will, drive, and untapped talent to come face-to-face with a team of Soviet professionals, among the best trained and equipped in the world.  You're probably going to have your ass handed to you. But there's this - it's your home ice, you're playing to a packed house, and anyone who's ever played a team sport will tell you that once the game starts, anything can happen. Even a miracle.

How can you NOT love this stuff? Yes, the Olympics can be ridiculous (I'm talkin' to you, Scott Hamilton, with your "Triple toe loopTRIPLESOWCOWOHMYGODHENAILEDITI'MMAKINGPEEPEEINMYPANTS!!!!!!" announcing hysterics), but some of sports' greatest moments have come out of the Games. Say what you will about the events themselves (I'll give you curling - having curled myself, I can tell you that it's fun to do, not so much to watch. They should spice it up a bit - make the curlers act like WWF wrestlers. "Lemme tell you something, Mean Gene - the Nordic Hammers can run, but they can't hide. Can you SMELLLLLLLLL WHAT THE BROOOOOOM IS COOKING???!!!"), the whole thing is pure drama. Exotic locales, athletes giving their all for a shot at greatness, shocking upsets, scandals, the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat - come on! 13 days of kick-ass entertainment. What more could you want?